A little piece of me…

zoos sa

Another week has gone by and I don’t know about you but mine has been pretty jam packed.

Pole class turn private lesson. On Saturdays my pole classes are at 8am, which understandably it’s hard for some people to find the motivation. We’re a few weeks in to term now and it was only me at the last class so it turned into a bit of a private lesson as well which was great.

Lunch with my grandparents. On Sunday I caught up with my grandparents for lunch for the first time in a while which was nice.

Home away from home. With everything that’s going on in my personal life it was nice to take a bit of time away from home and stay at my Dad’s for the week while he was away. My dog and I even enjoyed a nice walk in the reserve that backs on to the house.

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Business cards arrived. I ordered some business cards for Nutrimetics and they arrived in the post this week, woohoo!

Nutrimetics Centre Stage. Nutrimetics held a centre stage event called the Professional Make-up Masterclass where we got to hear about the newest eye shadow Nutrimetics have brought out in their professional make-up range.

Monarto Zoo Volunteer Day. I had a lovely day up at the zoo on Wednesday, it was only 2 degrees when I got up there but the sun was shining brightly and it turned out to be a lovely day.

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Aquapole. Another week and another workout with a couple of my girlfriends, I am enjoying being able to see them every week!

See what I mean about a jam packed week! I hope you all had a great week and please feel free to share your highlights in the comments.

Zoos can be a controversial topic, especially depending on what zoo you’re talking about. Personally, I love the Adelaide and Monarto Zoos, I’ve been to two others overseas but they were the kind of zoos that drug animals for photos and I can’t get on board with that sort of practise.

Some people or groups (hello, PETA) believe animals, especially wild animals like lions, shouldn’t be held in captivity. But what happens when a species are dying out, say they’re critically endangered and in the next 10 years will be extinct in the wild. What do you do then? You bring that species into captivity and breed them with the aim of releasing a population of them into the wild.

Or do you think that we should just let these animals go extinct? Maybe there is an argument for that, maybe it’s the natural order of things. But what about when it’s not? Take the black rhino for example, it’s critically endangered in Africa and although in many areas it’s illegal to hunt them, it still happens. So sitting on your hands and thinking enacting laws is enough is equivalent to sticking your head in the sand and hoping the problem goes away. And it will go away because there won’t be any rhino left, but is that the outcome we want?

And so we come back to zoos, and the purpose of many zoos is not just to exhibit animals for the public to see, but to educate them on each animals’ plight. To conserve species using sometimes even a genetic based breeding program that incorporate zoos not just in one country but internationally as well.

I know there are zoos where the focus is on people being able to pet animals like tigers, or ride elephants. Those zoos, I have a problem with. They drug the tigers for a photo, they beat the elephants into submission, and that is just awful. Don’t support those zoos.

Zoos like Adelaide and Monarto Zoo, they are conservation focussed, they want to save species and educate the public and engage them in helping save the animals as well.

So I challenge you, go to your local zoo, not just to see the animals, but if the zookeepers do any talks, go to a couple of those, find out what the focus of the zoo is and how they achieve it. You will be amazed at what they are trying to achieve.

I’m super excited to say that I have completed my training and am now qualified as a Mallee Minder volunteer with the Zoo, woohoo!

The training days were just really to familiarise me with how to get into the zoo and where to go, rostering, and of course meeting new people.

I have had some pretty cool experiences already, there’s the usual land maintenance and conservation work. But if doing that while being able to watch giraffe or Mongolian horses wasn’t cool enough, I have also been able to pat rhino, and given an odd, ad-hoc job of helping to round up yellow footed rock wallabies for their vet check.

Now that I am qualified though, it means I get my shirt and security pass into the zoo and get to choose which Wednesdays I can go up there and help out, I just need to send the supervisor a text and let him know I’m heading up.

Africa holiday. I mentioned last week that I had decided to go on an African Safari holiday through Tanzania and Rwanda. Last weekend I forked over quite a sum of money for flights and the safari deposit, so that’s it, I’m really going!

Flexibility class. On Saturday I had my weekly flexibility class, and my stretchiness is definitely improving which is great.

Friends birthday dinner. One of my closest girlfriends turned 30 last Sunday so she left the kids at home with her parents and we caught up for dinner on the Saturday night which was awesome, we had a really good time.

Family catch up. On Sunday my partner and I caught up with my Dad and Step-Mum for lunch and then headed over to my grandparents place for afternoon tea. It was nice to catch up and spend some time together, we don’t really do it too often.

Monarto Zoo. I had a volunteer day on Wednesday and am now officially a “Mallee Minder”, yay! The highlight for the day up there was rounding up the wallabies for their vet check, oh man that’s a lot of effort.

I hope you all had a great week, if there are any highlights you’d like to share just add them in the comments!

About a month ago I posted saying I had been accepted as a volunteer up at Monarto Zoo. I was, and still am, super excited about this opportunity, but the last month since being accepted has been both full on while there’s also been not much happening at all!

I attended an Orientation and Basic Training day about three weeks ago where I learnt a bit more about Monarto and Zoos SA, things like OH&S, the expectations of volunteers and that sort of thing. So all very generic, which was fine. We also got a trip around Monarto Zoo so that we could see where we’d be working from, and learn a bit more about the Zoo from behind the scenes. That was really cool.

In the last three weeks since then, I have been put in contact with my trainer for the Mallee Minders so am now trying to work out dates I can do that with work, and after I’ve done that I’ll be fully qualified, yay! I’ve also had to organise a police check which is a pain in the bum but because I’ll be a volunteer with Zoos SA I get it for free which is good. On top of that there is a Volunteers Meeting this Saturday which I’m hoping to go to, but it starts right when the Zoo is opening and I don’t have a pass or anything to get in, so I’m waiting to hear how all of that will work.

It definitely feels like it’s all happening, and I’m pretty pumped. The only other thing I really need to do is go shopping and buy some appropriate pants to wear as a Mallee Minder. They have to be like Hard Yakka pants (or shorts), so I need to work out where the hell I can buy those for ladies as I’ve only ever seen them for sale for the guys.

Are you just starting volunteering anywhere? Or have you been volunteering for a while? What do you enjoy about it?